Contents

Host System Prerequisites

Hardware Prerequisites

The host hardware on which Charon-PAR runs must fulfill at least the following requirements:

• Intel or AMD x86-64 hardware platform (AMD support starting with Charon-PAR version 3.0.6)
• At least 3GHz, 3.4GHz or higher is recommended
• SSE 4.2 and FMA required
• CPU cores required:
  • at least one CPU core for the host operating system, and
  • at least 2 cores per emulated CPU (3 cores for future advanced DIT)
• RAM requirements:
  • 4GB RAM plus 1.1 times the emulated RAM size for the emulator. Additional memory is required for I/O buffering and other Linux processes (2 to 4 GB can be used as a starting point).
  • at least 24GB RAM for N4000 models
• One Ethernet interface for the host system and one Ethernet interface for each emulated Ethernet NIC. TAP interfaces connected to a virtual Linux bridge can also be used. Please note that the use of TAP interfaces is restricted to internal bridges in cloud environments (that is, a bridge cannot be linked to a NIC connected to the cloud LAN). The latest interface type supported is MACVTAP mode.
• At least one available USB port if HASP hardware licenses are to be used.
• Disable NUMA balancing (see section Disabling NUMA Balancing below).
• If possible, turn off hyper-threading in BIOS.

Please note:

• The sizing guidelines above—in particular regarding number of host CPU cores and host memory—show the minimum requirements. Every use case has to be reviewed and the actual host sizing has to be adapted as necessary.
• If the host CPU does not support the required extensions (SSE and FMA), the emulator will not start. Instead, it will stop with an error message indicating the missing features.
• To identify the capabilities of the host system CPU, use one of the following commands: lscpu or cat /proc/cpuinfo.

Disabling NUMA Balancing

One prerequisite for Charon-PAR is to disable NUMA balancing. There are two basic methods to do so. They are described below.

General Information

As the first step, check the status of NUMA balancing:

# cat /proc/sys/kernel/numa_balancing (0 = off, 1 = on)

If it is enabled, use one of the methods below to disable it.

Caveat: a different kernel parameter, numa (values on or off), allows disabling the NUMA awareness of the kernel. In a system with several NUMA nodes, this can cause serious performance degradation. Disabling NUMA awareness of the kernel is not a prerequisite for Charon-PAR.

Disabling NUMA Balancing Using sysctl

To disable NUMA balancing temporarily in a running system, use the command: # sysctl -w kernel.numa_balancing=0

To make the configuration permanent you must create a sysctl configuration entry:

• Create a file in /etc/sysctl.d/ (e.g., 90-numa.conf)
• Add the line kernel.numa_balancing=0
• Save the file.
• Please note: this method overwrites any NUMA settings made via the kernel boot option method below.

As this method does not require a reboot of the system, it is the less disruptive one.

Disabling NUMA Balancing via a Kernel Boot Option

To disable NUMA balancing via a kernel boot parameter, perform the following steps as the root user:

• Open the file /etc/default/grub in a text editor.
• Add the following parameter to the variable GRUB_CMDLINE_LINUX:
  • numa_balancing=disable
• Save the file and regenerate the grub.conf file.
  • For systems with BIOS boot:
    # grub2-mkconfig -o /boot/grub2/grub.cfg
  • For systems with UEFI boot (example for RHEL; check the location if you use a different distribution):
    # grub2-mkconfig -o /boot/efi/EFI/redhat/grub.cfg
  • Reboot the system.

Please note: if the numa_balancing parameter is set via sysctl (see above) it will override the value in the grub configuration.

Software Prerequisites

Host Operating System

The following host operating systems are supported by Charon-PAR:

• Red Hat (64-bit): versions 7.x starting with 7.4, versions 8.x, and (starting with Charon-PAR 3.0.8) 9.x
• Oracle Linux (64-bit): versions 7.x starting with 7.4, versions 8.x, and (starting with Charon-PAR 3.0.8) 9.x
• Rocky Linux (64-bit): versions 8.x, and (starting with Charon-PAR 3.0.8) 9.x
• CentOS (64-bit): versions 7.x starting with 7.4, and versions 8.x.
  Please note that as of 1 January 2022 CentOS 8 is EOL; for new deployments, it is strongly recommended to use a non-EOL alternative. For existing installations, the possible negative impacts of staying with an EOL host operating system should be carefully evaluated. Future versions of Charon-PAR many no longer run on CentOS 8 systems.

General limitation:

• Do not hibernate or suspend the host system while Charon-PAR instances are active.
• Charon-PAR 3.0.5 build 21906 implemented real-time priority for the timer task. This changes requires that CPU accounting on the Linux host be disabled.

Please note: Stromasys may offer prepackaged cloud marketplace images for Charon-PAR. At the time of writing, this is planned for AWS. Such marketplace images contain the supported host operating system, the required additional software and the Charon-PAR emulator product.

Other Host Software Prerequisites

Older HASP license driver packages (e.g., 7.6.3) require the 32-bit glibc package. This is available in the standard CentOS and Red Hat repositories. Sometimes it is not possible to use an online repository for the installation of 32-bit glibc package. In this case the procedure described in How to install the glibc.i686 package without an Internet connection can be used.

On RHEL 7.x and CentOS 7.x, the libev package is required. If it is reported as missing during the Charon installation on RHEL 7.x check that the repository extras is included and enabled, if not, include and enable it. Please refer to your Linux distribution administrator's guide. Example for RHEL 7.x:

# yum-config-manager --enable rhel-7-server-extras-rpms

Supported Hypervisors

The Linux host system can run inside a VMware virtual machine. Supported VMware versions:

• VMware ESXi 5.5, 6.x, and 7.x

Please note:

• Using the VMware vSphere Hypervisor (ESXi) to dynamically move an active Charon-PAR instance to a different server is not supported (vMotion). In particular, moving to a system that does not have identical hardware (including clock speed) will cause problems.
• Prerequisites of additional products may limit the choice of hypervisors. For example, a VE license server VM requires VMware ESXi 6.5 or higher. Please refer to the appropriate documentation.

Should you require a different hypervisor, please contact your Stromasys representative to discuss your requirements.

Licensing Requirements

Charon-PAR requires a valid license to run any emulated systems. The license can be provided in several ways:

• Sentinel HASP licenses:
  • local hardware license (USB dongle),
  • software license, or
  • network license (every software license can also be a network license).
• VE (Virtual Environment) license server (starting with Charon-PAR version 3.0.6). The license server can be on the same system as the emulator or on a separate system. If the license server is to be installed on the same system as the emulator, the emulator must run in an environment supported by the license server (see Licensing Documentation).
  

Without the presence of a valid license key, the emulated system will not start. Should the license become invalid or be removed during operation, the emulated system will stop after a grace period. The lengths of this grace period depends on the version of the Charon-PAR software and the license configuration.

In a virtualized or cloud environment, there maybe additional challenges for user-friendly and stable product licensing. For such environments, please contact Stromasys or your Stromasys VAR to discuss the best option for your requirements.

Guest System Prerequisites

Currently supported Charon-PAR/PA9 guest system versions:

The currently implemented 64-bit models support the following HP-UX versions:

• HP-UX 11v1 (11.11), 11v2 (11.23)
  
• In addition, emulated systems configured with 360 and 440 MHz CPUs can also run HP-UX 11.00 (e.g., rp2400-1-360, rp2400-1-440, rp7400-1-440, etc.)
• HP-UX 11v3 (11.31), on rp34xx and rp44xx only, is supported starting with Charon-PAR version 3.0.5.

The currently implemented 32-bit models support the following 32-bit HP-UX versions:

• The 9000/720: HP-UX 9.05, 9.07, 10.20, and 11.00
  
• The 9000/B132L: HP-UX 10.20, 11.00, and 11v1 (11.11)

Currently supported Charon-PAR/PA3 guest system versions:

• MPE/iX 7.5 (Backward compatible)

HP Operating System Licensing Requirements

The user is responsible for clearing any licensing requirements regarding the guest operating system and the applications running on the guest operating system with the original vendor(s).